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Our work in Lesotho

Eco Cook Bags.

Keeping food cooking while using less fuel, water and time.

An Eco Cook Bag is a simple insulated bag that allows a heated pot to continue cooking away from the fire. Bring the food to the boil, seal the covered pot inside the bag, and the heat already in the pot finishes the job.

In Malealea, the bags are made locally using plant-based insulation — connecting more efficient cooking with local skills, livelihoods and the regeneration of degraded land.

It is a small change to a daily routine. But it touches how much fuel a household burns, how long someone stands over a fire, and how practical it is to cook the foods that make a diet more nourishing.

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Making Eco Cook Bags in Malealea
Eco Cook BagsMade in Malealea
Cooking over an open fire in Malealea
Long, fuel-hungry cookingMalealea, Lesotho
The idea

A simple idea with a wider purpose.

Preparing everyday foods such as beans, pulses, maize and stews can require a pot to remain over a fire for a long time. That means more fuel, more time spent tending the pot and, where wood or other polluting fuels are used, longer exposure to smoke.

An Eco Cook Bag holds on to heat that has already been produced. Once the food has been brought to the boil, the covered pot is placed inside the insulated bag. The bag is closed around it, allowing retained heat to continue the cooking process without the pot remaining over the fire.

It is a practical change to everyday cooking — but its potential reaches much further.

How it works

Four steps, using heat you have already made.

01

Bring the pot to the boil

Food is prepared in a lidded pot and heated normally, following the recommended method for that particular recipe.

02

Place the pot inside the bag

The hot, covered pot is carefully transferred into the Eco Cook Bag. The insulating sections are brought securely around it.

03

Let retained heat continue the cooking

The insulation slows the loss of heat, allowing the food to continue cooking without constant attention or continuous fuel.

04

Serve when fully cooked

After the recommended cooking time, the food is checked and reheated when necessary before it is served.

The bag does not create heat and it is not a replacement for safe food preparation. Community demonstrations, tested recipes and clear instructions are therefore an essential part of every introduction.

Why it matters

Five everyday differences.

  • Less time over the fire. The pot does not need to stay over active heat for the whole cooking period, so less time is spent tending a fire or stove.
  • More careful use of fuel. Retaining heat can shorten the period for which wood, gas or another fuel is needed — particularly for foods that normally require long cooking.
  • Less exposure to cooking smoke. The bag does not eliminate household air pollution, but a fire burning for less time means less time spent beside its smoke.
  • Less water lost during cooking. Food stays in a covered pot, so less is lost through prolonged boiling and evaporation.
  • Nutritious foods made easier. Beans, pulses, vegetables and stews become more practical to prepare, while the cooking liquid — and its nutrients — stays in the meal.
An Eco Cook Bag in everyday use
Everyday cookingMalealea, Lesotho
Local production

Made in Malealea.

Eco Cook Bags are not simply delivered as finished products from somewhere else. They are produced in Lesotho by local makers using locally sourced plant fibre wherever possible.

Africa’s Gift supports this work alongside the Malealea Development Trust, Eternal Flame Worldwide and the people responsible for producing, demonstrating and improving the bags.

Local production keeps skills and economic activity within the community. It also allows the design, instructions and recipes to be developed around the way people actually cook.

A project supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office brought together the Malealea Development Trust, the National University of Lesotho and Sheffield Hallam University to produce Eco Cook Bags locally and develop a booklet of traditional Basotho recipes adapted for retained-heat cooking.

Explore the Basotho recipe booklet
Local makers producing Eco Cook Bags in Malealea
Made by local makersMalealea, Lesotho
Fibre plants grown along swales for cook bag insulation
Fibre grown on swalesRestoring degraded ground
The insulation

Growing the insulation.

The insulation inside the bags comes from hardy fibre plants capable of establishing on challenging and degraded ground.

These plants are grown along swales that follow the contours of the land. During heavy rainfall, the swales are designed to slow water moving downhill, give it more time to soak into the ground and catch soil that might otherwise be carried away.

Their roots help hold the ground together, while regenerative farming practices support the plants and gradually return organic matter to depleted soil. The harvested fibre can then be processed and used as insulation inside the Eco Cook Bags.

This creates a valuable connection between the land and the finished product: growing a useful material while working to protect soil and make better use of storm rainfall.

What’s next

The next stage: regenerative hemp.

Africa’s Gift’s ambition is to introduce hemp grown through regenerative methods as a future source of natural insulation.

Hemp can produce a strong, lightweight fibre with established insulating properties. Lesotho is also developing its industrial hemp cultivation and processing sector, creating the possibility of a locally grown material with uses beyond the Eco Cook Bag.

The project’s longer-term vision is to explore how locally produced fibre could help insulate local school buildings as well as cooking bags.

This work is still being developed and will require careful growing, processing and product testing — but it represents an exciting opportunity to connect land restoration, local enterprise and warmer learning environments.

Hemp grown through regenerative methods
Regenerative hempA future fibre
Cook bag users in the Malealea Valley
Reported experienceMalealea Valley
Independent research

Learning from the people who use the bags.

Independent qualitative research led by Sheffield Hallam University examined how insulated cook bags affected everyday life in Malealea. Participants described spending less time actively cooking, using less fuel and water, wasting less food and experiencing less cooking smoke. Women particularly valued having more time available for other household, family and income-generating activities.

The research was based on the experiences reported by cook-bag users rather than controlled laboratory measurements. Africa’s Gift uses those experiences to guide improvements to the bags, community training and future evaluation — without turning them into unsupported promises or inflated statistics.

Read the independent research
The wider work

A practical part of better nutrition.

Eco Cook Bags form part of Africa’s Gift’s wider approach to enhancing nutrition in Lesotho.

At the Teaching Farm in Malealea, communities can explore regenerative agriculture, water capture, soil improvement and ways of growing a more varied harvest. Eco Cook Bags carry that work into the kitchen by helping families turn what they grow into nourishing meals with less active fuel, water and cooking time.

Healthy soil, varied food and practical cooking knowledge belong together. Supporting one without the others would leave the work unfinished.

Discover Enhancing Nutrition in Lesotho
From the farm to the kitchen in Malealea
From soil to mealMalealea, Lesotho

Help this work keep growing.

Every donation funds the soil, water, growing and cooking work in Lesotho, South Africa and Uganda — delivered by volunteers, with the communities that run each project.